2: Tirpitz's Plan

Description

This is Part 2 of the new Great War Revisited project. This episode is an expanded, rewritten, and rerecorded version of the Member Episode released in 2019. With Tirpitz in control of the Imperial German Navy and it was time to put his plans into action. But to do so, he needed political and public support.

Listen

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to History of the Great War Premium Revisited Episode 2 - The Anglo-German Naval Arms Race Part 2 - Tirpitz’s Plan. This episode will continue to track the expansion of the Imperial German Navy. Last episode discussed the very beginnings of the German Navy, and then the arrival of Tirpitz as a leading figure in its further development. The episode then ended with a brief discussion of Tirpitz’s risk theory. This episode will discuss the series of events in the last years of the 1800’s, and first years of the 1900’s during which Tirpitz would take his theories and begin to turn them into reality. Just as a quick review, Tirpitz’s Risk theory was based around the idea that the Royal Navy, with all of its global commitments, could not risk a conflict with a large naval power in Europe. All that a European navy had to do was be large enough to present the risk of a large loss of British ships, and if it could do so then the British would not, and could not, risk getting into a naval conflict with that navy because to do so would risk the ability of the British to maintain their empire. Tirpitz’s goal was to build up the Imperial Navy to a point of strength where it could present this risk. To do so meant that Germany had to start building ships, a lot of ships, and those ships would cost a lot of money which meant that Tirpitz had to get political and public support for an expensive naval building program.

While Tirpitz was good at many things, the detailed financial and political planning that was going to be required was not an area where Tirpitz was particularly strong. He knew what he wanted, and he could justify those beliefs, but he had little experience in the public arena of taking those beliefs and turning them into policy and then gathering political support for that policy. Due to this inexperience it was fortunate for the German Navy that in 1897 he would meet Commander Eduard von Capelle. Capelle would prove to fill in some of the holes that Tirpitz had, like fiscal policy. The two would work together for the next 17 years, all the way until Capelle retired in 1915. Their relationship would be perfectly described by German Admiral von Trotha who would say “[Capelle] was at that time, because of his personality, a good moderating counterweight to the more free-wheeling Tirpitz. He would listen quietly to Tirpitz’s hard-driving plans without much response. Then, a few days later, he presented in a thoughtful and tactful way the difficulties, financial, and, above all, parliamentary, which the plans would meet. In the ensuing conversations, Tirpitz would then formulate the right policy.” Capelle’s role in determining the possible path forward was critical, because to build a large navy meant that Tirpitz needed public and political support, and he would need an almost endless supply of it. Tirpitz would also later discuss one of the ways in which Capelle would influence the path of the Imperial Navy, this is a good example of the type of advice that Capelle would give to allow the plans to work within the political reality of Germany at this time: “On Capelle’s advice, I included a financial limit in the first Navy Bill. As the raising of money offered no difficulties—for, as I have already said, the necessary means were at hand without taxation, this financial limit made the Bill more palatable to the Reichstag; but it created difficulties for us afterwards in the administration of the Bill, because the value of money depreciated steadily.”

While the politicians would eventually be the group that would have to make the decisions to finance the Imperial Navy, it would begin with the people. In June 1898 the German Navy League was created with the purpose of building up its membership and convincing the German people that a large navy was not only a good thing, but was actually essential for the future success of Germany as a nation. The League found financial backing from industrialists, who stood to gain the most from the large naval construction contracts. These industrialists would always be strong and consistent supports of Tirpitz’s naval plans. They knew that if the Germans wanted to build a fleet, a large one made up of the largest ships, then they would have to both sign large contracts with the industrialists and they would also have to finance innovations and improvements to the factories and shipyards, which the manufacturers could then use for even larger contracts. It was really the perfect storm of positive changes for all of the heavy industries in Germany. Fritz Krupp would be one of the largest contributors to the German Navy League and it was through the financial backing from industry that the League of reach a membership of 600,000 just three years after it had been created. While the German Navy League was technically independent of the German government and the Navy, it would still behave as a propaganda arm for Tirpitz and his plans. There was also an official propaganda group within the service, called the Section for News and General Parliamentary Affairs. While the name would obfuscate its purpose a bit, the Section was created to launch a propaganda campaign targeting the German people. As much of a role as he would have in the future development of the German Navy perhaps Tirpitz’s greatest success was convincing the Germam people that they needed one at all. The country had for all of its recent history focused solely on its army and the conflict that was destined to happen on land. In his first years as the head of the German Navy Tirpitz managed to convince enough citizens of Germany that they needed a large navy, and those citizens began to put pressure on the politicians in the Reichstag to make it happen.

Beyond the relatively straight forward goal of building a large number of warships Tirpitz also had other objectives that he hoped to achieve that would help the German Navy sustain its growth and power. The Army would always be the most important arm of the German military, and in the days of Bismarck its funding structure had been changed to try and give it more autonomy and security. This change was put in place in 1893 and after that year the funding model for the Army had been changed, instead of having to request and justify funds every year it was instead budgeted five years at a time. This presented a kind of stability that Tirpitz hoped to achieve because believed that it was essential for long term planning. If he could commit the German government to a multi-year building program Naval Plans would not have to be constantly adjusted based on the yearly whims of politicians. This long term planning was important based on the speed at which Germany could build warships. They would not be able to produce more than a few ships a year, at least initially, and so any large expansion of the German fleet would be measures not just in years but also decades. This also meant that in the early years of the program the German government would be spending a lot of money, without a lot in return other than a small handful of ships that were unable to challenge other naval powers. If he could get long term commitments, Tirpitz hoped that politicians would not be able to back out once the building started. The one problem that Tirpitz would have with these long term funding lock-ins, which he would achieve, was that he was not prepared for the rapid increase in naval costs. The long term funding of the army worked out well because the army’s costs were very well known, there was some expansion and technology enhancements, but the variance in costs of these changes were generally quite small. This was the complete opposite of what would happen for the Navy, where the costs of ships would skyrocket in the 20 years before the First World War.

Tirpitz’s initial plan would actually call for a building program which would last a decade, with the goal of having a two squadron battlefleet at the end of the program. This would give Germany a total of 19 battleships, with 1 fleet flagship, 2 squadrons of 8 battleships, and 2 battleships in reserve. While this was the goal, Tirpitz would not draft the first naval law in a way that committed Germany to the full 19, instead he just asked for a commitment to build 11 battleships over the span of 7 years. This would result in a building tempo of 2,2,1,2,1,1,2 with that number of ships laid down each year. This would give the Germany Navy 11 battleships at or near completion in 1905. This initial set of ships, which would eventually comprise the 1898 Naval Law, would cost an estimated 410 million German marks. Even this very large budget was only achieved by certain economies being introduced to lower the overall costs. For example the number of German sailors brought into the navy was actually decreased for many of those construction years, roughly cut by a third, to reduce salary, training, and supply costs. The German sailors were conscripts, and so it was relatively easy to reduce the total brought in each year. More pertinent to our story, the battleships that were being built were just 11,000 tons. This sounds quite large but by the standards of other navies being built around the world at this time they were quite small. As a point of comparison the Canopus class of pre-dreadnought battleships of the Royal Navy, which were being laid down at around the time that the German plans were being solidified were a little over 14,000 tons of displacement. This would be the first instance where Tirpitz would prioritize the number of ships and not the quality and size of those ships, it would not be the last. With the large cost of the construction program Tirpitz was forced to give assurances that naval technology was leveling off. This was important because there was some concern that the ships that were being built from the program would be out of date quite quickly, which would force them to be replaced. If the ships would be considered top of the line longer, then the large initial investments would be more worthwhile. I am not sure that Tirpitz actually believed this, and of course we know today that it could not have been further from the truth, even the pre-Dreadnought years of the 20th century.

One of the reasons that Tirpitz’s political planning and maneuvering was so important, and the reason that the topic of budgets and spending was so important was the odd setup of the German Tax System. Before the First World War, and really until the rise of Hitler in the 1930s, the German constituent states, Bavaria, Saxony, Prussia, etc., had a large amount of autonomy within the country. For our purposes the most important feature of this autonomy was around the tax system and how the federal government and the Reichstag obtained money. At this time the Army was not a German Army, but instead was several armies that were controlled by the German constituent states. This is structure would remain into the First World War, which is why for example the Bavarian Army would remain independent during the war. The Navy on the other hand was truly a national Navy, and that meant it got its funding not from the states but from the Reichstag. This was problematic because the taxing ability of the Reichstag had been intentionally handicapped by Bismarck. Bismarck was concerned that the Reichstag could damage the power of the states and the elites within those states that largely controlled the state governments. Therefore he limited the federal income of Germany to be only tariffs, postal and telegraph services, and consumption taxes on items like alcohol and tobacco. Critically missing from that list is direct taxation. As the years went by even the indirect taxes that it could levy started to bring in far more money that expected, especially tariffs, and so a further change was made, which would be known as the Frankenstein Clause. This was a law passed by the Reichstag whereby any federal income over 130 million marks would be sent to the states. Then the Reich government could request some of it to be returned, which was then called matricular contributions. With an annual cost of 56 million the 1898 Naval Bill was heavily dependent on these matricular contributions for its funding and this dependence would grow substantially as the total cost of the German naval program skyrocketed. This put Tirpitz in a rather unfavorable position, the best way for him to get the money that he needed for his construction programs was to allow the Reich to levy direct taxes, which the states would simply not allow. Any direct taxation would also be heavily criticized by various powerful groups throughout German society, particularly the Prussian nobility which enjoyed many privileges around taxation, ruling out something like an income tax or inheritance tax which would target wealthy Germans directly. And so, the Naval Bills would have to constantly play a balancing game between what they wanted to request in terms of budget, and what was possible. This would force the German navy to be fiscally conservative, which would for many years result in the construction of ships that were strictly inferior to those of other countries, especially when compared to those of the Royal Navy.

Almost as soon as the 1898 Naval Law came into effect discussions would begin about alterations and expansions to its existing clauses. Tirpitz would later recall that “In the course of the summer of 1899, we realized that the supplementary estimates could not wait until the conclusion of the six years’ limit (1904), and we decided to bring them in at the latest in 1901 or 1902, but to arrange the annual estimates for 1900 in such a manner as to open the way for the supplementary Bill and to announce at the same time that we intended to anticipate the latter by some years.” The changes introduced to the original Naval bill would be called a Novelle, which is just German for amendment. We are going to be using that word a lot in the coming episodes, because the history of German naval policy during these years is just a long series of Novelles as the size and cost of Germany’s fleet continued to increase. For the first Novelle Tirpitz was hesitant. The alterations would allow for a much larger fleet to be created, expansion that was necessary due to the construction policies in Britain. However, Tirpitz’s hesitancy meant that there would be some self-imposed financial limitations, but his final decision to pursue the Novelle was also driven by financial considerations: “I was prompted to this decision by three reasons. The first was of a parliamentary nature. We could not manage with the financial limit fixed in 1898, for we had underestimated the increase in the price of ships”. The concern was that if he asked for too much the request would be rejected, which would undo much of the previous work done in 1898. Not for the last time, in his quest for Novelles and expansion, Tirpitz was aided by the actions of the Royal Navy. In 1899 the British were deep in the Boer War, and as part of that conflict they had blockaded Delagoa Bay in South Africa. This action was done to prevent the Boers from receiving supplies from other European countries, including the Germans. As part of this blockade the Royal navy seized three German ships, which were on their way to South Africa. Two of these ships were searched and then released, however one of the ships would be held, with accusations that it was carrying contraband. This would begin the Bundeswrath Affair, with Bundesrath being the name of the ship. Even though Lord Salisbury would eventually order the ship’s release, offered compensation, and issued an official apology, the damage in terms of German public opinion was irreversible. This event occurred at the perfect moment for Tirpitz. He was about to ask the German people to support further expansion of the navy, and the British had just given him the perfect example of why Germany needed a stronger navy if it wanted to be taken seriously around the world. This would be cited as one of the three major reasons that Tirpitz would pursue the Novelle: “The third, and most important, reason why the Foreign Office of those days under Bulow, and I personally, did not want to delay the new Navy Bill for some years was the altered international situation. Violence had been done to a few of our ships.” These events, and the discussion of the actions of the British did introduce an interesting wrinkle into the conversations around the Novelle, how directly should the British be named as a possible enemy? To quote Tirpitz: “When working out the second Navy Bill, we hesitated for a long time whether or not to bring the idea of the English menace into the preamble. I should have preferred to leave England out of it altogether.” Tirpitz’s concern was that, if such a public declaration was made, it risked a British challenge at a time when the German fleet was ill prepared to react to such a response, Tirpitz again: “During the first years of the policy of encirclement the English did not yet take the building of the German fleet seriously. They were convinced that no first-class fleet could be built with the small sums that were expended. They considered that our engineering side was still too undeveloped, and our lack of organizing experience too great.” With every increase in the German building program the risk was that it would cross some kind of arbitrary boundary with the British, which would cause diplomatic problems: “The Navy Bill provided the first opportunity for a moderation of England’s desire to destroy us, because it would not have been so easily satisfied once the fleet was completed. On the other hand, it goes without saying that the fact of our building a fleet was felt by England to be an encroachment upon her monopoly of the seas, and that in this respect the building of the fleet made our diplomatic position more difficult.”

While Tirpitz was hesitant around challenging the Royal Navy too directly, such a confrontation was being discussed among German naval leaders. As early as 1896 the possibility of a naval war with Britain was being planned for, or at least operations were being planned by the German Navy. These operations were not exactly inspiring due to the great disadvantages of the German fleet in any such conflict. One of the ideas that had a better chance of success was simply to take all of Germany’s available naval strength and, for lack of a better term, execute a suicide dive into the Thames estuary to cause as much damage as possible before being overwhelmed by the Royal Navy. None of the ships were expected to return, but it would at least allow them to cause some damage, which was never guaranteed in a fight on the open seas. This was the reality of the situation, and one of the reasons that the only real option available to German naval planners was to increase the rate at which construction was happening. On the British side there were also plans for a naval war against Germany, with an Admiralty analysis from early 1900 stating “After the First Naval Law Germany would have 17 ships of the line and 4 heavy cruisers, but the British could bottle them up in port with 28 ships of the line and 8 heavy cruisers, and even if the German forces could find some advantageous battles, Britain could easily replenish her losses from her extensive reserves. The blockade of the German coast would thus continue regardless of any German successes.” It is important to note though, that the general belief among German naval leaders, even if they were planning for a possible war against Britain, was that war should be avoided at all costs. The Chief of the Admiralty Staff Büchsel would state in 1902 that “it is the task of our diplomacy to avoid war with England as long as our honor permits.” He would then go on to outline what he expected a war with Britain to be like, which would involve German trade swept from the seas and then an attack from continental allies which Britain would use to directly attack Germany.

The final draft of what would become the 1900 Naval Law would basically double what the building goals of the Imperial Fleet had been. Tirpitz would describe it like this “The second, and still more important, reason in favour of the speeding-up of the supplementary Bill was of a technical and administrative nature. We had to try to build as many ships as possible every year; our military object and the means at our disposal suggested three big ships a year as our rate of construction.” The goal was not just to be build more ships per year, but also to build more ships in total, under the new naval law there would be another fleet flagship, two additional squadrons of 8 battleships each, and then 2 in reserve. There would also be a doubling of the number of cruisers and destroyers. This would cost a total of 1.3 billion marks, or about 81.6 million per year. That was just the cost of the new construction, and did not take into account all of the costs associated with the expanded navy. These costs included maintenance of the ships, the manning and training of the crews, and also the improvement to docks, harbors, and construction facilities that were required. When the cost of these items were added to the 1.3 billion construction costs the total would be a 3.7 billion dollar increase in expected expenditures. This was large, but would be spread out over several years and even though it was large, the passage of the amendment was never seriously in doubt. Tirpitz and Capelle would not have been submitted if passage was not assured. It would reach the Budget Committee, which after some discussions decided to enact a tariff on wine, brandy, and champagne to help defray the costs. The one meaningful change requested by the Reichstag was that instead of being just an amendment to the 1898 Law the previous one should just be repealed, due to some of the details and complications that had been included in the earlier legislation.

The 1900 Naval Law would prove to be the longest standing of all of the Naval Laws passed by the Reichstag before the war. For the following 6 years Tirpitz would attempt to obey its constraints, which were primarily of the financial variety, even though the cost of construction continued to increase. He believed that this was important so that the Naval Program was not questioned on an annual basis. He still had to go back to the Reichstag every year to get the next year’s budget approved, but as long as he stayed within the general confines of the 1900 estimates this was an easy process. His concern was that if he went much larger than the budgets previously allotted to the navy then the political leaders might begin to question the program as a whole, which could be very problematic for the future of the navy. Tirpitz understood that he could only achieve his goals if he maintained the support of the political leaders and so in these early years of construction he spent much of his time and energy trying to stay on their positive side. However, events in Britain would eventually force his hands, and another novelle would be put in place in 1906, conversations for which would begin as early as 1901.

These conversations began due to the same types of concerns that drop the first changes in 1900, because of the construction tempo that was in the 1900 law. Under the 1900 construction program there would be a three tempo for battleship construction, so three would be laid down every year until 1906. In that year the tempo would drop down to 2. Another problem that the next novelle would seek to address was the increasing costs of ship construction. As ships got more and more powerful they were also becoming increasingly more expensive. In 1900 the cost of each battleship was set at just 18 million marks, the novelle sought to increase this to 20 million. Quite an increase, but one required due to the changes in ship construction costs. Capelle initially suggested that a novelle be made that would add 5 additional battleships and 4 additional cruisers, these 5 battleships would be added to the years after 1906, which would extend the 3 tempo all the way to 1911. These would then be earmarked for service overseas, with the German colonies. However, Tirpitz remained hesitant to introduce these changes for the same reasons as he wanted to try and always stay within the agreed upon budget. Tirpitz’a reluctance to go to the Reichstag to try and get money for more ships caused the conversations to shift. Other changes would begin to be discussed in 1904, these being prompted by the Kaiser. After returning from some of his travels around Europe the Kaiser wanted to increase the tempo at which construction was occurring. Instead of a 2 tempo, he wanted a four tempo which would last from 1906 to 1909. This would allow for the completion of another squadron of battleships much sooner. Along with this increased tempo the battleship lifespan would be decreased to 20 years, which would require a faster tempo in the future to keep numbers up, but would result in a newer navy in the coming decades. This is an example of a time when the Kaiser’s strong support for the expansion of the Imperial Navy actually caused problems for Tirpitz. He was, at least from Tirpitz’s and Capelle’s perspective, being far too bold and pushing too hard for expansion, beyond what the Reichstag and the people would support. In this case Tirpitz would be the voice of reason, talking the Kaiser down from his massively increased tempo and even the idea of adding a third double squadron of battleships. But these conversations with the Kaiser, and Tirpitz’s reluctance, did not end the movement towards a 1906 novelle because events would eventually force a 1906 novelle, although it would be very different than what was expected in even 1904.

The root of the 1906 novelle was not in Berlin, but in London because the German building program would force a reaction from the British, a reaction we will discuss in much greater detail in the next two episodes. However, it is important to consider what the Germans believed about the British position, and especially its diplomatic situation with other countries. Core to the German belief in 1900 was that the British and French would never be able to fully resolve their differences and work together. This was critical to the German Navy because the French were the second largest navy in the world in 1900 and if they were possible enemies for the British then a large portion of the Royal Navy’s thinking and resources had to be dedicated to the French threat. However, in 1904 the British and French would sign an official agreement of understanding that seemed to turn the long-term rivals into something very close to friends. This allowed the Royal Navy to focus more of its strength against other possible enemies, like the upstart Germans. This would completely wreck Tirpitz’s Risk Theory calculations, and it would cause the danger zone, during which the German Navy was not strong enough to present enough of a risk to the British but were large enough to be a concern, far into the future. This change in the geopolitical situation, and an increase in building from the British, meant that if Risk Theory was to be pursued the Germans needed more ships, and they would get it with the 1906 Novelle, which we will discuss in a later episode.

Before we end this episode I want to spend a bit of time discussing the ships that were being built under the 1898 and 1900 Naval Laws. I think it is important to discuss these now because they are kind of forgotten in history. While they were top of the line ships at the time, they would quickly be made obsolete by the Dreadnought and future ships of that type, and none of them would see action during the First World War. The important part to understand is that in the late 1890s the idea of what a battleship was and should be had in many ways settled down to the definition that it would be until 1906. This was a big change from the 1880s and before, during which there was a lot of ambiguity around what the battleship was. There were many problems involved with gunnery, and specifically making guns large enough and accurate enough to handle the amount of armor that was being placed onboard ships. This resulted in several ship generations where there was a belief that ramming might actually be the best method for ships to use in combat. This sounds completely absurd to us today, but during the time period the engagement ranges possible by naval guns was generally less than 800 meters. It would only be during the 1890s that the distances would really begin to stretch out. Even as gunnery became a greater emphasis it would take several years before ships began to mount a large number of large guns. There were also other technological innovations during this time that shifted battleship construction in both big and small ways, for example changes in the process of creating armor plate, particularly the introduction of nickel-steel into armor plate design allowed for a reduction in the thickness of armor plate without compromising its protective abilities. This allowed for more of the ship to be protected by armor, while also reducing the total weight of that armor. For German ship designs this meant that the Brandenburg class of battleships, which immediately preceded the Wittelsbach class had 400mm of armor, while the Wittelsbach would have just 225mm which represented a substantial saving in total weight dedicated to armor. The Germans would remain as one of the world leaders in armor plate design for much of the early 1900s. Another key innovation would be the introduction of chromium and manganese into the creation of armor plate, which when combined with new production techniques allowed for a much greater surface hardness while also maintaining the proper elasticity on the back side of the plate. This production technique would be called Krupp Cemented armor and it was soon used by all navies to produce better armor plate. The first four ships that the Germans would build after 1898 were the Wittelsbach class, These would mount just 4 24 cm, or 10 inch, guns, although they would have a large number of smaller calibers. At the same time the British were only using 28 cm, or around 11 inch guns, on their ships. This disadvantage in caliber would never really go away. Even with some of these challenges, the Wittelsbach class represented an important jump in German shipbuilding, prompting the Kaiser to say at the launching of the Wittelsbach that “No great decision may now be made without the German Empire and the German Emperor.” By the time that the Branschweig class was laid down in 1902, with 28 cm guns, the British were already onto 30.5 cm. The last German pre-dreadnoughts, which would be the ill-times Deustchland class, would have the same 28cm guns, while the British would stick with their 30.5cm on their similarly timed Lord Nelsons. There was a good amount of controversy in Germany due to concerns that the Germans were wasting their time and money building ships that were inferior to their British counterparts. This would lead to the question of why bother building them if they were inferior. This was Tirpitz’s greatest fear, and he would fight against that mindset throughout the entire expansion period. Tirpitz favored a quantity over quality approach to his building programs, favoring having the maximum number of ships even if it meant reducing the overall size and expense of each individual ship. This would later prove to not be one of Tirpitz’s mistakes, and even though the German capital ships were built with a different set of priorities, they were not markedly inferior, even if their guns were generally smaller than their British contemporaries.

In relation to the events of the First World War, one item that was largely omitted from Tirpitz’s plans during the first two Naval laws were submarines. Most of this comes down to Tirpitz’s personal beliefs on the role that submarines would play in a future war. Early in Tirpitz’s building plans, submarines played essentially no role. Tirpitz did not believe that they were worth the time, material, and money to build. In Tirpitz’s defense the early submarines of the turn of the century were a new and somewhat crude technology. His greatest concern was the short range of the early submarines, he would later say that “I refused to throw money away on submarines so long as they could only cruise in home waters, and therefore be no use to us.” Because of this viewpoint very little money would be spent on developing either Submarine designs for production capacity, although in the years immediately before the war this would begin to change and more U-boats would be built. And even when this began to change it was less down to a change of heart in Tirpitz, and more an admission that the public and official pressure around U-boats was simply too great. Tirpitz would then spin his views and actions a bit in his later memoirs saying “as soon as sea-going boats were built, however, I was the first to encourage them on a large scale, and, in spite of the financial restrictions imposed upon me, I went as far as the limits of our technical production would permit.” In essence Tirpitz was taking the sure path to power, big ships and big guns, even though there was another navy that already had a monopoly on the space, the Royal Navy. We will discuss the Royal Navy next episode, and try to determine why, at the turn of the century the Royal Navy was looking, well, not so great.